I did it at 37 or 38 and the quest was still Yellow, but the starter Quest (The Jedi Prisoner) had turned Green. I forgot to mention that you have to run a precursor Flashpoint (I think) called Taral V.

I will say one thing. Maelstrom is much more focused and story oriented. But I ended up running Taral V twice due to an emergency (sorry Uan :/). And the differences in time to get through were huge because in Taral there is actually a decent amount of room to explore and the bonus quests feel much larger. My second time through the group wanted to explore everything and it took twice as long. I thought it was an interesting contrast but yes these two are MUST DOS.

Leahnidas

First time in TV took about 2 hours, though that was mainly due to healer connection issues. Second time was just over an hour and I was the only one who had been there, but to be fair, everyone was of a higher level (High 30s). TV is fun enough and great for xp but it's still "ez mode" in my opinion, aside from the optional Sith boss. In my first run our tank wasn't even spec'd into the tanking tree and he held aggro just fine the entire time and whilst healing on my 2nd run, there wasn't a single time I was concerned (again, except for that damned Sith boss). I even froze up on the last boss and thus died and they still got him down with no real problem.

Maelstrom though...definitely a step up. My group was all level appropriate, if not 1-2 levels higher. My first time having to call for ammo breaks and remind people that they can regen out of combat; I felt like I was channeling my inner-Gigit! We used CC a few times, mainly when a pat managed to work it's way into a current fight.

First boss seems like he would be simple enough (I personally had no trouble with him) but if people have awareness issues, he's a major pain in the ass. Have to consistently break LoS from him for 30sec 2-3 times during the fight or else you get literally two-shotted.

No other bosses until last one were memorable, imo, but last one is a doozy. Basically a gauntlet fight to with LOS again to make your healer cry. Took us a couple of tries but finally got it. I can imagine this boss and the first one to be insane on Hardmode but I'm looking forward to it in kind of a sick way.

Storywise...wow, this place is awesome. Great atmosphere and I enjoyed the limited conversation decisions I got to make. The ending is very cool and I join in on the recommendation that EVERYONE should do this FP at least once.